


Not Even The Chocolate?

by Coffeedormous



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Fluff, Harry Hart Lives, M/M, post-angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 16:15:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4186464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coffeedormous/pseuds/Coffeedormous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When after that one very long and very emotional talk they finally got their shit together and kissed, Harry thought that everything is finally at its place, that life was, at least at that very moment, quite wonderful, and right that moment it was totally acceptable to indulge himself in thinking that it will from now on pretty much always be this way. After that, while being snogged by Eggsy for dear life, he stopped thinking altogether.</p>
<p>But as soon as he was able once again to retain a thought, he dived right into overthinking it. What should he do, how, exactly, does it work?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Even The Chocolate?

When after that one very long and very emotional talk they finally got their shit together and kissed, Harry thought that everything is finally at its place, that life was, at least at that very moment, quite wonderful, and right that moment it was totally acceptable to indulge himself in thinking that it will from now on pretty much always be this way. After that, while being snogged by Eggsy for dear life, he stopped thinking altogether.

But as soon as he was able once again to retain a thought, he dived right into overthinking it. What should he do, how, exactly, does it work? Aside from the fact that he never actually had what can be called a stable, long-term relationship, aside from the fact that the last one at least vaguely resembling such took place approximately a good decade ago, he realized that he had no idea how to behave around Eggsy  now. Should he court him, should he take him on a date? Would Eggsy like to show affection in public, or should they behave like nothing happened? Will they move in together or just meet up? With a shrug of dread Harry thought of meeting Michelle and pondered a bit on whether delivering news about her husband's death will turn out to be in fact less awkward and horrifying experience than being introduced to her as her son's..boyfriend? _Good lord._

Harry buried his face in his palms, but frustration wouldn't go away. He looked miserably at all the papers covering his desk, sighed and actually bumped his head on the desk with a rather audible sound.

“Why, you are looking just peachy today, my friend.” he heard Merlin say, entering his office with a pile of documents and a poorly concealed grin.

Harry rose his head, having to actually rub it from that bump. “Not more of these, Merlin, please, surely we have some secretaries who can sort this out. If I knew Arthur job came with so much paperwork, I would have refused it, no matter how you begged me.”

“Me, begging? I simply stated that I will sooner put Eggsy in Arthur's chair than do it myself. If the memory serves me right, it took exactly one 'do I gotta meet them all important folks and tell'm off if they's talking shit?' from Eggsy for you to promptly accept the position. And paperwork is what keeps together every organisation, you know that. Console yourself with the fact that ours is approximately ten times smaller than MI6's.”

Instead of an answer, Harry bumped his head on the table once more, a bit more carefully this time.

“So,” Merlin went on with a much too naïve an expression, “is the bureaucratic hell the only one you are currently shackled in?”

Harry, even without seeing his face, finally picked up the amusement in his friend's voice and rose his had once more. “Now what's that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, you know. Nothing. But I hope you know that if something is troubling you, you can always tell me.” He patted Harry on the shoulder and tried once again, unsuccessfully, to hide the grin.

Harry stared at him for a moment, his suspicion quickly turning into assurance.

“Shit. He didn't..”

“Are you kidding, _of course_ he did!” Merlin burst out, his hands flying high with excitement. “Oh, not to me, of course,” he frowned at Harry's terrified and confused expression. “He went to Roxy's first thing in the morning, woke the poor thing up and told her everything in details while consuming half the contents of her fridge. And no, I wasn't there, she told me, in turn waking me with her call as soon as Eggsy left.”

Harry, who was considering gluing his palms to his face altogether, peaked at him through the fingers: “'Poor thing', though?”

“Oh,” Merlin gaped even wider than seemed humanly possible, “such a good friend, this girl. And such a naïve little thing, too. Such a pity.”

Harry growled, not changing the pose. “Crist. Am I right in assuming I won you some money?”

“Well, technically, Eggsy did.” Merlin smiled. “ And not only money, mind you, I value my friend's happiness much more. Roxy has a very long list, which includes handling my paperwork for a month, overseeing next recruitment tests and wearing red lipstick for a whole day in front of all the HQ. But quite frankly the best reward is that nobody will be seeing me doing anything from her list of the same sort.”

“I see.” Harry uttered.

“Oh, off with the false embarrassment, Harry, we are all grown men here, even if some of us sometimes behave like children. I am genuinely happy for you, and so is Roxy, and so will be everyone, believe me. And I simply don't believe that you yourself are not happy it finally happened.

“I am. But..”

“Eh, here it comes.” Merlin sat down and composed his face in a supposedly therapeutic expression. “Out with it, then.”

“I haven't got the foggiest idea what to do with it all!” Harry cried, staring at his friend. “Merlin, I haven't been in this kind of situation _for ages_ , and...well, I fear I haven't ever been in exactly _this_ kind of situation. I..” his voice dropped “I feel like I want to.. share a life with him. Such as my life is, anyway. But I have no idea if this is what he wants. And even if he does want it, how do people actually fucking do it, anyway? I mean, how do you go from a..kiss to living a life together?! What if I screw this up by doing the wrong thing? Should I invite him out, give him flowers? I don't even...”

He finally glanced up to his friend's face, only to find that Merlin broke into silent giggles. “Fucking thank you, Merlin, you bastard!”

“Oh, Harry, my god, oh I live for the moments like this.” he managed to say, finally calming down and standing from his chair. “I am only gonna say this, Harry: you're an idiot. An idiot who's been seeing too much old movies and not enough, well, people. And you're gonna be alright. Good night to you, my friend.” he smiled at Harry with a strange, very warm smile, a bit inconsistent with all the previous mockery, and left.

Harry, having spent a couple more minutes in hopeless silence, sighed and bumped his head on the table once more.

***

It was around eight p. m. when he decided he could not hide in his office any longer, and finally left, taking a train to the shop. After a brief last consideration he decided on going to Eggsy's place and inviting the young man to dinner somewhere nice and quite, with an opportunity to discuss all this. By the time he reached Eggsy's doorstep, he managed to wound himself up even more, realizing the fact that, apart from facing Eggsy, wich was frustrating enough, he will probably have to meet his mother, last encounter in person with whom he had about twenty years ago and in the most unpleasant circumstances. As the horror of the situation has practically consumed him, he rushed to press the button on the door to cut himself out of all retreat routes. Only after he did so, he realised that it was, in fact, 21st century and he could've just texted Eggsy, but it was too late.

The door opened quickly, revealing Michelle Unwin, in her bathrobe and with damp hair, looking homey and messy. She gazed at him with a bit of surprise and suspicion, but, it seemed, without recognition.

“Yah? Can I help ya, mister?”

Harry, who was considering the undignified option of silently running away, managed to pull himself together after few seconds and asked, promptly looking down and praying that the dim evening light and good twenty years will do their job and the woman won't recognise him at all:

“Sorry to disturb you, ma'am, I was wondering if I could see Eggsy..Gary..you son, please.”

She eyed him a bit more closely: “He ain't here. Off to his..” she paused, then sighed, as in accepting something not entirely unpleasant, but ruining her own plans on the matter. “ to his boyfriend.”

“Oh.” Harry let out, too surprised to process the information. Michelle has apparently interpreted his reaction in her own way, as she went on:

“Ya, I know, right? Kids these days. But he seemed so 'appy, bloody shinin' he was. Wouldn't tell me who he is, li'l bastard. “Someone from work” 'e said. Weird, though, 'e said I know 'im, this bloke. He said 'Mum, you kinda know 'im and you don't like 'im much, but I'm sure you'll come round', that's what he said. But you see mister, I don't know nobody from this tailor shop of his. Now how do ya like that, huh?”

Harry was still struggling to answer something, anything, but the woman was apparently accepting his silence as an encouragement to go on.

“So at first I was worried sick, and I told 'im to stop fooling me head around, but he just, ya know, that boy, he just hugged me and told that it'll be alright. Now I ain't stupid, thank you very much, an' if I felt even a hint that me boy was in trouble, he wouldn't be goin' anywhere, I tell you. But I just looked at 'im, right in his eye, an' he looked so 'appy, so delighted, that I decided that it must be a real thing, this bloke of his, ya know? You just can't fake a face like that, believe me. Anyway, I can tell 'im you popped by, mister whatsyourname. Actually,” she stepped a bit closer and squinted “if you pardon me, sir, you look a lot like them his colleagues from this tailor shop. Are you working with 'im, sir? Maybe you even know this bloke of his, eh?”

As Michelle took one more step towards him, suspicion in her eyes growing, Harry swayed back, away form the lamp light, murmured something like “not to worry” and “good evening”, and fled the scene rather ungracefully, leaving confused Michelle Unwin on her doorstep.

  When Harry was hailing for a cab, he tried to make sense of his situation. It was clear from the way Michell described Eggsy's behaviour that the young man was at the very least happy with this whole..affair of theirs. As to his current location, Harry felt very peculiar about the fact that whereas in usual circumstances he would be quite furious with anybody, even Merlin, going to his house without notice, he was certainly delighted that young man has showed his awful lack of tact in such a way. But then again, it didn't really make thing much easier to Harry as to how he should behave.

He got out of the cap a few blocks away from his home and popped to the late-night shop for some chocolate, a bottle of vine and, after a long and painful consideration, walked a couple of houses farther and purchased also a modest but quite beautiful bunch of roses. Feeling very stupid and less sure of himself than he felt in decades, he approached his own doorstep and rang.

The windows were lit up, but Harry waited for about a minute and got no response. He rang again, feeling more and more like in a awful surreal dream. After ringing a third time and convincing himself that there was nobody in the house and he just happened to leave the light on, the man opened his door with his own key. He entered the hallway, tossing the flowers and the chocolate on the small corner table and went into the living room, loosening his tie on the way. This relationship matter had him of his heels all day long, and it seemed to him now that he managed to screw it up in just one day. Harry was about to crumble on the sofa when he noticed that the space was, in fact, occupied by Eggsy, curling up, his hand under his cheek, and J.B., being in a much similar position, as much as dog anatomy allowed it, and drooling on both Eggsy's hoody and on the posh leather of the couch.

Apparently Harry let out some sound of surprise, because the young man shrugged, rubbed his eyes and sat up, looking sleepy and, Harry had to admit, quite adorable.

“J. B. you swine, Harry 'll kill me for the couch...oh, you're 'ere!” Eggsy lit up, tilting his head.  “Been wondering when you'd show up. Folks at the shop told me you left a while ago. Been taking a walk, was you?”

“In fact, I went to your place.” Harry answered, struggling to sound calm and at ease. “Your mother told me you were..well, here.”

Eggsy seemed a little worried at the mention of Michell, but he said only “You could've called, ya'know.”

“Yes, I was a little lost in thought and...but, I say, you could've called too, crushing here like that! Not that I mind...”

“Of cause you don't mind.” snorted Eggsy. “And no I couldn't call, I run out of money on my phone, an' Merlin told me since for work I only need glasses, it'd serve me right to be off the phone a little and “not to spend kingman resources on prank-calls with my friends. And, well, I didn'd wanna call with glasses.”

“Ah.”

“Anyway, are you gonna stad there all day? An did you bring any food? I'm starvin'.”

Instead of answering Harry went to the hallway and shortly after came back with all his gifts awkwardly piling up in his hands. For a moment Eggsy just stared at the man, but soon he started to produce some muffled bubbling sounds which very quickly turned into the laughter. However, as soon he noticed that Harry was still standing there looking miserable and puzzled, so the young man stood up, took all the thing from Harry and placed them, as carefully as he could, on the couch. He then approached the man, sparks of laughter still in his eyes.

“Flowers, Harry? Really? Oh man, you're so old..”

Harry felt a pang of hurt. “I am indeed, as I had pointed out to you yesterday, rather old, and...”“An' rather stupid, I know”. Eggsy said, encircling the older man in his arms and looking up at him. “An' when I say old, Harry, I mean like bloody _mediaeval_.”

Harry arched his brow, still not easing into a hug. “And what's so medieval about the flowers, pray tell?”

Eggsy sighed. “Well, I don't know, I mean, I guess they're all right for some people, but Harry, I just thought it was pretty obvious for someone your age that...” he frowned, “that relationships are not about all this crap, ya know? Flowers an' fancy dinners, my ass. I mean, that's what people do when they are not sure what else to do with someone. It's like a safeguard, before you get to know a person better. And I kind of hoped that after all this crap with V-day, with your bloody returning from dead and shit, that we'll kind of..skip all this. I mean, you're the most important man for me, ever, the fuck do I need flowers from you?”

Harry was silent for a long time, just staring absently in the eye of his protegé, his friend, his lover, and mused on the very banal matters, the kind that everyone muses on then one's happiness gets showed right in one's face. He thought, as did every happy man, about how peculiarly world was arranged, he thought about what had ever done to deserve it and what an amazing thing it was to simply be alive and be here at this very moment. He then finally closed his arms around Eggsy, kissed the him, and as he spoke again, his voice got some new, calm, assured note in it, the one you'll only hear in the voices of people deeply devoted to their cause, the voices of the children, and the ones who are truly happy.

“To hell with flowers, then. But would you show mercy to the chocolate at least?”

Eggsy's smile, unsure while Harry stayed silent, had now bloomed at his face as brightly as it had bloomed at Harry's.

“Well, since you didn't get us anything to eat, chocolate will have to do. But just so you know, next time it better be chocolate bars and not that this weird belgian stuff. It's got no topping!..”

**Author's Note:**

> I can't be the only one not understanding the "flowers-dates-serenades" part of human relationship. ^.^


End file.
